Tackling Accountability

When I was a defensive coordinator, we adopted an attacking style of defense where we put enormous pressure on the offenses we faced. One key to our success was being very good tacklers. The season before we gave up 40 points a game and missed countless tackles. To improve our defense, we knew we had to tackle better. We spent a lot of time teaching and practicing tackling. One of the most important things we did was emphasize a measurable form of accountability for our tackling. 

Accountability For Tackling

We wanted everyone in the program to be accountable to our tackling success. To do this, we wanted to quantify the impact of a missed tackle We began to chart yards after contact. How many yards did the ball carrier gain after we made contact with them? We then came up with a simple system to hold players accountable for missing tackles in a meaningful way. 

We came up with a very simple system. For every yard we gave up, we would have sprints every day at the end of practice the following Monday through Thursday. If we gave up 100 yards after contact, we had 100 yards of sprints at the end of practice. We broke these down into 10 yard increments. We then would add 5 yards for every missed tackle. If we missed 20 tackles, we would have another 100 yards of sprints. 

When we introduced this to the players, we explained to them why we were doing it. Was it going to hurt? Yes. But what really was going to hurt was losing a game because we failed to get the ball carrier to the ground. We wanted to exchange some pain in practice to avoid the disappointment of losing because we didn't perform. 

Once our players understood the "why" of our tackling accountability, they bought in 100%. They wanted to be successful, and they understood that accountability was a big part of success. When kids understand the why of what you are doing, and the benefit of doing it, they are going to jump in full speed. 

As we talked to our players about tackling, we showed them film of good and bad tackles. One thing that we saw repeated was what we called "assumption tackles." An assumption tackle is where you assume your teammate is going to make a play, so you slow down your pursuit of the football. We coached them to never assume the tackle would be made. Your job is to be in a position to help on the tackle. The more tacklers we could get to the football, the more of a chance we would have of getting the ball carrier to the ground. 

It seems simple. Everyone runs to the football. But it is human nature to be average. It is human nature to take the easy way out. When the ball carrier is stopped, players have a tendency to stop. We had to teach, coach, and drill our guys on not assuming someone else would make the play. Do your job, pursue the football, and play full speed until the ball carrier is on the ground. 

If a guy misses a tackle and you are in position to make the play immediately, he may not gain any yards after the missed tackle. But if you slow down because you assume, the ball carrier is going to gain more yards after a missed tackle. 

The Results

In our first scrimmage we saw major improvement from the season before, but we still struggled with missed tackles. We had 22 missed tackles, and gave up 105 yards after contact. For the yards after missed tackles we had 105 yards in sprints. We added 5 yards for every missed tackle. That was another 110 yards in sprints. We had a total of 215 yards in sprints in 10 yard increments. We always rounded up, so the 215 became 220. This meant we had 22 ten yard sprints to end practice. It wasn't fun. We didn't enjoy it. But like most things we don't enjoy, we learned. 

In our second scrimmage we made huge strides. We missed 14 tackles and gave up 56 yards after contact. We had guys encouraging each other to make tackles. We started to see our effort increase. On the third play of the scrimmage we had a guy miss a tackle, get up, and pursue the ball as it cut back across the field. He ended up getting a missed tackle and a solo tackle on the same play.

 In our first game of the season, we missed 10 tackles and had 35 yards after contact. Because we tackled well, we posted a shutout. In fact, we didn't give up a first down until the 4th quarter. We continued this trend through the season, posting 6 shutouts and giving up 6.8 points per game. 

As we went through the season, we found our tackling greatly improved. Each game we gave up less and less yards after contact. Because we tackled well, we gave up very few first downs. Because we weren't giving up first downs, teams were not able to score as many points against us. We also were able to get off the field faster, meaning we were fresh late in the game. In fact, we had 9 games where we didn't give up a point in the second half. 

Tackling Is More Than Accountability

I credit our accountability as a big part of our success, but we also became much better at teaching tackling. We changed everything we did as far as tackling goes. We changed our tackling drills, our tackling circuit, and our tackling mindset. A big part of tackling comes down to playing with great leverage and angles, and being in the right position to make a tackle. We also spent time in the weight room building our core strength and hip flexibility, as this is vital to tackling. 

Defense comes down to lining up right, playing with great effort, tackling, and creating takeaways. If you don't tackle, your defense will not ever be good. It is frustrating when you miss tackles. When you build your defense and your practice plans, make tackling an emphasis. Go through your film and determine where you struggled to make tackles, and figure out how to fix your tackling. Then, add some sort of quantifiable way to hold your players accountable for their tackling on the field. 

I wish you the best as you prepare for the upcoming season. If you are looking for some resources that will help you in your preparation, I have put together some things that coaches at all level of football are using with their programs. Not only will these help you be more organized, they will save you valuable time on the weekends. 

Additional Resources:

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! At one time this was $99, but it is available right now for less than $13!

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. Again, it is less than $13 right now!

And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/ This helped us to build dominating special teams! 

I wanted these to be available at a very reasonable cost. These can help you to be more successful on the field and more efficient in the office! 

Over the last several months, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a new book about faith and purpose. The book is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an eBook for the Kindle App. The cool thing about the Kindle app is that you can read the book on any device. I invite you to read it, and discover the power you receive when you make a decision to walk with the Lord. Here is a link to the book: Finding Faith

Since publishing the book, I have received numerous texts, calls, and emails, from people who are going through similar trials and tribulations. They were feeling many of the same things I was feeling. The found comfort in the book. They also found they had a desire to change and to live better. They wanted more joy. 

I would invite you to read the book and discover the possibilities that God has planned for your life.

 Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

The Three T's (Updated)

This is an update of a post I wrote last year. I wanted to take a few minutes today to share a couple of important points that can help you win more football games. I hope this small piece will be of value to you regardless of what scheme you run. Regardless of which system you decide fits your players, your success will be determined by a few important factors. 

When I was a defensive coordinator, I installed our defense as more than a system. It was an attitude. Defense is about pursuit and passion. We installed our defensive attitude with a very specific process. I like to break things down into their simplest forms. Our defensive attitude revolves around getting the ball back as quickly as possible. There are four ways we can get the ball back: 

1. The offense scores. 
2. We can force our opponent to punt 
3. We can get a turnover or a turnover on downs
4. We take the ball away. 
#1 is not allowed. That is our attitude. We really want #4. It is ideal. Ultimately, the 3 T's will determine which way we get the ball back.

What are the 3 T's? The three T's are quite simply: Technique, Tackling, and Takeaways. Technique involves two things for our players. First, they must know how to line up right, and they have to be able to get into a comfortable balanced stance. When we say line up right, they must line up in the appropriate place based on the call. Second, they have to be able to control and dominate their gap responsibility, or their pass zone. If we can get our guys to line up right, we can be successful on defense. One misalignment, however, can be disastrous  To make sure we line up right we keep things simple. We have simple alignment rules for our guys.

There are only five things an offense can do to each side of your defense. They can give you a nub, a single, twins, trips, or quads. We have very simple alignment rules for our second and third level players to ensure we are always lined up right. From there, we use our individual and group periods to develop our ability to control our gap responsibility in the run game, and our pass rush or coverage responsibility in the pass game. We teach our players what to do, how to do it, and why they need to do it the way we teach them. We never wanted our guys to have to guess where to line up. If they had to guess, things were too complicated. We wanted things simple enough that guys could line up quickly against modern spread offenses. 

The second T we emphasize is tackling. We have got to be able to tackle well on defense. Tackling is about more than how to contact a runner. It is about angles and leverage. If your defensive players understand angles and leverage, you will improve your tackling immensely. Every day we work on our pursuit angles. We cover every possible angle that we may face. We work the A gap run, the B gap run, the off-tackle run, and the sweep. We also work our draw and screen angles. We teach our players four concepts that will give us great angles to make efficient tackles. I never understood why people only do a sweep pursuit. Shouldn't we work our pursuit angles versus inside and outside runs? Our players and coaches bought into this philosophy and it helped us to take great angles of pursuit. We taught our pursuit as a progression.

First is our force concept. We have a player assigned to be the force player on every single play. We teach our force player that his landmark is the outside jersey number of the ball carrier. By attacking the outside jersey number of the ball carrier, our force player "forces" the ball carrier back into our players in pursuit. We tell our force player to take on the ball carrier as close to the line of scrimmage as possible. While we don't want to miss a tackle, our force player is coached to always take an angle where if he misses the tackle, he misses to his help. Our force player is typically going to be an invert/outside backer in our sky or cover 3 look, or a corner in Cloud or Cover 2.

The second concept of pursuit is our attack concept. Our attack players are going to be our defensive end and playside inside backer. They are aiming for the inside jersey number of the ball carrier. We want them to stay square as they approach the ball carrier. They work a slight inside out angle while pursuing the ball carrier. If the ball carrier is inside of them on an A or B gap run, they will work to the middle of the ball carrier's chest. Attack players always spill traps and counters.

The third concept of pursuit is called collapse. Our collapse players are typically our Mike backer and our defensive tackle or tackles, depending on our front. They are aiming one yard inside the ball carrier. They are responsible for the immediate cutback of the football. If they get a downhill run, they attack the middle of the man. They are spill players on trap plays.

The fourth concept of pursuit is chase/contain. Our chase contain players are typically our backside defensive end and backside linebacker. They play counter/reverse/boot on flow away. One important concept is that our backside players must not run upfield. They need to squeeze space making sure not to get leveraged by the boot. When flow goes away they must get their eyes down the heel line and make sure nothing is coming back to them. Once they are sure nothing is coming back, they take the best angle to the football. 

Those four concepts of pursuit helped our leverage and angles, which greatly improved our tackling. When we installed this pursuit concept, we found ourselves much more successful on first and second down, which helped us greatly on 3rd down. Below is an illustration of our pursuit concepts in action.

Force Illustrated

One very important coaching point is to Stay square. We need to keep our hips and shoulders as parallel to the LOS as possible. By staying parallel we are able to increase the surface area we have to contact the ball carrier. We are also able to explode our hips into the tackle, allowing us to drive the ball carrier back. When our shoulders are turned, we give the offense yards after contact. This is not good for the defense. As you can see in the picture above, our collapse and chase players are not doing a great job of keeping their shoulders square. This creates space for the ball carrier to cut back and makes us less effective. However, our Force and Attack players are doing a great job of keeping their shoulders square. 

This brings us to our third T, Takeaways. Takeaways are vital to our success. Any time we can get a takeaway  we are changing momentum. Takeaways also change field position. Forcing a team to punt is great, but often the punt results in a 40 yard change of field position. When we get a takeaway  we are saving ourselves big chunks of yards. Every ten yards we gain on defense is one less first down our offense must gain to score. 

How do you increase your takeaways? We do a takeaway circuit each day. We spend 5 minutes working strip drills, tip drills, and interception drills. We then emphasize taking the football away in all of our indy, group, and team periods. We want to have a ball in every single drill. In our inside run, skelly, and team periods, we are trying to take the football away from our offense. Here is the kicker. The offense also gets better with ball security. I am a firm believer that you get what you emphasize. If you coach your team to get takeaways, and you expect to get takeaways  and you get them to expect to get takeaways, you will get takeaways. You get what you emphasize and we emphasized takeaways in every aspect of practice. We first secure the tackle, then we strip the ball. 

Our attitude on defense is that every play is an opportunity to score. We are allowed to score on defense. We are allowed to rip the football out from the ball carriers hands. We are allowed to intercept a football in the air. Turnovers don't just happen. We drill our players to know turnovers are created. We must purposefully work to create takeaways on defense.  We drill our linebackers on flying to the football when it is in the air. We had a situation a few years back where our Mike LB intercepted a ball thrown thirty yards downfield on a deflection. He got the interception because he was hustling to where the ball was being thrown. He could have done what many players do. He could have watched the ball and then half ran to where the ball was being thrown. He understood our attitude and has bought in. We teach our guys to read the Axis. The axis is the QB's hips and shoulders. His hips give you direction, his shoulders give you trajectory. Our LB read the axis and he accelerated with everything he had and he got within four yards of the receiver when the QB pulled the pin. The ball was tipped in the air, and our guy made the pick on the run. You can't expect takeaways to magically happen. You have got to drill your players and emphasize takeaways with every drill you do.

The three T's, technique, tackling, and takeaways, are the three key points we emphasize with our defense. They make up our defensive attitude. We are going to line up right, play hard and fast and relentless. We are going to have great technique to control the gap or zone we are responsible for. We are going to pursue the football with great leverage and consistently make tackles. We are going to do everything in our power to take the football away from our opponent. 

If we can line up right and play with great technique, tackle well consistently, and win the takeaway battle, we are going to give ourselves a chance to win every single football game.

Another key was our preparation. We were very detailed in our approach to preparation. We scripted everything. We worked well as a staff to prepare for each opponent. Our players were confident because they knew what are opponents were going to do before they did it. A lot of coaches ask me how we were so well prepared. I put together a Game and Practice Planning Resource Packet for defensive coordinators. It has 12 documents that will help you prepare each week. These are editable documents that can be customized to your program. They are available for under $15! You can click here to order them and download them today!  Click Here: Defensive Game and Practice Planning  

The newest Odd Stack Video I have is out with Coaches Choice in conjunction with Nike. 
Basic Concepts of the 30 Stack Defense

In January of 2016 I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's on the offensive side of the ball. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense.

If you don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can order the Amazon version for the Kindle. It has everything except the embedded video. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Installing-Explosive-Concepts-Into-Offense-ebook/dp/B01B12YSCG/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.

Order the Amazon Kindle version here:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Using The Big 12 to Prepare on Defense

Over the last 10 years I have had several opportunities to speak at clinics around the country talking about our success on defense when I was a defensive coordinator. One thing that ultimately comes up is how we game planned for our opponents. While we had good players, we felt like a big part of our success was our guys having confidence going into each game. We spent a lot of time preparing for our opponents which allowed us to be able to anticipate what are opponents were going to do.

One of the most important parts of our game preparation was what we called The Big 12. The Big 12 were the 12 things our opponent did most. We made a list of these 12 things. We found that most teams pull 85% to 90% of their offense from 10 to 12 calls. When we say call we mean formation, motion, and concept. This gives us a lot of insight into what our opponents are going to do. Here is an example of The Big 12 from one of our opponents.

Looking at these 12 concepts, you will see that 1 in 4 plays was going to be stretch. When they got into Trey, we expected a stretch play to the trey side. The other concept they ran off of this was GT weak. This allowed our guys to know we were most likely going to see an if/then. If I am strong side, then I am expecting stretch. If I am weak side I am expecting GT. When you look at this list, you will see these 12 concepts accounted for 86% of their snaps. They had a list of 10 things that accounted for the other 14%. The other concepts were reverses, draws, and a couple of pass and play action concepts. 

When we went into our preparation for the week, we had the last 2 periods of our team vs. scouts to finish practice where we went only against these 12 concepts. We made sure our guys knew these were their bread and butter. In our other 3 periods of team vs. scouts we ran everything else. This helped us to be prepared for everything our opponent ran, with an emphasis on what they did most. During our inside run period and our pass hull we focused on these 12 concepts as well. This allowed us to work these in a small group setting as well. 

The Big 12 list helped us to be much more prepared and we were able to make more plays. One example of this was when we faced a team that ran a screen to the back whenever they brought the flanker in short motion to the formation. This was their 9th most popular concept. Because we had it in the Big 12, we worked it accordingly in practice. When our opponent ran it in a game, we were able to intercept the screen and return it for a touchdown. 

One huge mistake many defensive coordinators make is that they come up with scripts of 100 different plays. They script everything their opponent has done, and they make a scout book. They then roll through that book from start to finish. They end up running things their opponent may have run only twice in 3 games as much as something the opponent ran 24 times. This is not effective. 

Choose one of your opponents from last season and go through two or thee games, and make a report of the 12 things they did most. Typically this will account for a high percentage of what they did offensively. If they run a lot of formations, we may expand this to 16, 18, or even 20 things. We never go above 20. Our goal is to target 85% to 90% of what they do. This will help us to better prepare our players. Our practices are more efficient, and we have less wasted time. 

I put together a video of the process we use to determine the Big 12. 

By targeting our preparation, we were more prepared and our players made fewer mental mistakes. I believe we tackled better because we were in a better position to make tackles. We were able to get more takeaways because our guys were in a better position to create turnovers. Being targeted in your preparation will help you to be much more successful on the field during games.

What really revolutionized our game planning was using AI! Every coach should be using AI with their programs! And you don't have to spend hours figuring it out. I have done the work for you!

Using AI to Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan

If you want to be able to call the right defense at the right time, then you need to check out my newest resource! I spent over a year building an AI Game Planning Analyst that will help you save several hours each weekend while being more prepared than ever before! Using AI To Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan will revolutionize how you prepare for opponents. 

This was tested with programs of all levels, and every coach that used it said it revolutionized their game planning. Instead of flipping through multiple reports, you have everything in one place. The best part... You can talk to your data! You can ask questions and get responses. This is available at a special price right now! For a limited time, you can use the code AI at checkout to save $15. 

AI will not only save you countless hours each weekend, but AI will help you to be more prepared than ever before. AI can see data so much deeper than a human can. I walk you through how to use AI to truly supercharge your defensive game plan. When you get my resource, you get access to my custom AI Analyst! Here is a demo video of the analyst and how it provides you your data, your way, all in one place!

Using AI To Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan will revolutionize how you prepare for opponents. Order now to get access at a special introductory price! I spent a year beta testing this with coaches at all level of football. Every single one said this has revolutionized their game planning! Use the code AI at checkout to save a few $$!

One thing that will help you greatly in your preparation is having the right documents to game plan and prepare your practices. I have put together a group of 12 documents that are fully editable and customizable for you to use to prepare to be dominant on defense. These documents helped us to produce 6 shutouts and hold our opponents to under 7 points per game. We were plus 24 in turnover margin, and were able to make a deep playoff run for the first time in school history. The Big 12 is included and can be found on the play menu page of the weekly practice schedule document. The documents are available for download for less than $15 by clicking here: Defensive Game and Practice Planning Packet This packet includes everything from an in-game call sheet to weekly practice plans and scripts. It includes an install schedule and scouting report template, and much more. Click here to order yours today: Defensive Game and Practice Planning Packet Here are a couple of samples from the packet:

Every coach who has gotten this resource says it helped them improve on defense. They were better prepared for their opponents and were able to coach with more confidence. These documents are already formatted, and are ready for you to simply plug in your information! Everything you need is in this packet! 

In addition to this defensive preparation packet, I have a Game and Practice Planning Resource packet for Offensive Coordinators. It can be found here: Offensive Game and Practice Planning Documents. It is what I used to prepare as an offensive coordinator when we averaged over 45 points a game and 450 yards. 

I hope you took something from this post that will help you to better prepare for your opponents this season. 

A few months back I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense.

If you don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can order the Amazon version for the Kindle. It has everything except the embedded video. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Installing-Explosive-Concepts-Into-Offense-ebook/dp/B01B12YSCG/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.

Order the Amazon Kindle version here:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8